Navigate:

GOP leaders prepare for deficit deal

The supercommittee is prepping for a Nov. 23 deadline to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. |
AP Photo
Close

“People can add up a lot of different numbers,” Boehner said when asked about a large compromise. “You can take the overseas contingency account, which is about a trillion dollars worth of savings as a result of the drawdown of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s already going to happen. Some people want to put that into the overall number. Some want to take the number that we’ve already done — $1.2 trillion worth of discretionary savings — and add it to the number. So you could get to a four- or five-trillion dollar number if you’re able to meet your one-and-a-half-trillion-dollar goal for the supercommittee this fall.”

Indeed, there has been some grumbling in GOP circles that the supercommittee will try to count the Overseas Contingency Operations account as savings — which could provoke opposition in the House Republican Conference.

Text Size

-

+

reset

The whipping effort by McCarthy is aimed at getting rank-and-file members information in advance of a big vote. It’s a recognition that House Republicans require a long windup before considering major legislation.

“The whip team engages in a dialogue with our members on many initiatives to solicit member input and feedback throughout the legislative process,” McCarthy spokesman Erica Elliott said. “The joint select committee process is no different.”

Since becoming speaker in January, one of Boehner’s biggest challenges has been to persuade his fellow Republicans to go along with budget and policy proposals that he supported.

Just last month, he lost a high-profile vote on a continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating after 48 Republicans opposed it despite threats from Boehner that they could lose committee assignments if they didn’t fall into line. After heavy pressure from Boehner, his leaders were able to push the CR through several days later.

And during the debt ceiling fight this summer, Boehner and other party leaders were forced to undergo a tortuous process to push a legislative package through the House, only to see Reid and McConnell cut the final deal to avoid a default by the U.S. government. That Reid-McConnell agreement created the supercommittee, which is now studying proposals for further budget cuts.

Boehner was also compelled to back away from a “grand bargain” with President Barack Obama that would have cut as much as $4 trillion in federal spending while overhauling the U.S. Tax Code after his own members, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), balked.

The supercommittee was created as part of the agreement to increase the debt ceiling. If the panel is unable to reach a bipartisan agreement, automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion will kick in starting in 2013. Pentagon spending will be slashed by at least $350 billion, which comes on top of hundreds of billions in defense cuts already identified by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta — with backing from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), a Boehner ally — has warned that such reductions would leave a “hollowed-out military” that cannot meet U.S. security requirements.

In other words, the whole super-committee charade was a joke, the scary "automatic triggers" were always imaginary ( as McCain admitted the other day), and the entire ridiculous debt-ceiling circus was a lot of posturing that was never going to have any real budgetary consequences.

The reason we have a super committee is that the Republican leadership, can't deliver, on their end of their own bargains.

Why?

Because the GOP is now controled by the fanatical rural rightwing conservative christian armogedon plotting minority of teabaggers and other lunatics.

Let us not forget as we go forward.

WE WOULD NOT BE IN THIS MESS, IF BUSH/CHANEY/ DELAY/ FRIST and all the rest of these screaming Republican haters, WOULDN'T HAVE FAILED TO GOVORN SO DEVISTATINGLY while try into force us to have that PERMANENT REPUBLICAN MAJORITY

Sherman and Bresnanan are inaccurate or biased, or both. The "Grand Bargain" fell apart because, at the last moment Obama in the negotiating style of Yasir Arafat, insisted on tax increases, knowing that would never fly in the House. So what we have here, is the POLITICO acting as a mouthpiece or apologists for the Obama administration. Yes sir, Obama is truly the "Great Unifier".

POLITICO GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT- Its not a 1.2 trillion deficit cut its a plan to cut 1.2 trillion in spending over ten years from what we normally would spend still leaving us with a rising deficit. There will never be deficit reduction under Obama and to say otherwise is a joke. After all isn't his plan to bankrupt America?

WE WOULD NOT BE IN THIS MESS, IF BUSH/CHANEY/ DELAY/ FRIST and all the rest of these screaming Republican haters, WOULDN'T HAVE FAILED TO GOVORN SO DEVISTATINGLY while try into force us to have that PERMANENT REPUBLICAN MAJORITY

The super committee doesn't have the gonads to do what is necessary. No matter anybody saids, they are looking to ger re-elected. If they weren't looking to get re-elected, then they do what is necessary. The problem is the DEMS won't sign off on such a bill because they believe everyone is entitled to everything at somebody else expensive.

Speaker John Boehner and his GOP leadership’s message to its membership: Almost anything will be better than the so-called trigger, which contains hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic Pentagon cuts that Republicans find unpalatable.

First thing, Obama should endorse the Super Committee plan and tell congress to pass the bill.

Then, the T-Nuts will vote against anything Obama endorses and BAM! the Pentagon is cut.

Then Obama claims the T-Nuts would rather see terrorists kill Americans than get a budget passed.

If the republican majority has so much support of the american people, what's Boehner's problem if the outcome of the supercomitte doesn't fit into his ideals. Surely he should not have trouble finding support from conservatives. Why is he squeamish? You think the "no raising taxes" stance is going to bite him in his rear-side?

Stay tuned for more of the "do nothing congress", brought to us by voters who were upset, with due understanding, and put 40+ tea people in power.

How does it feel? The tea folks are learning the ropes like the old-salts of congress. Meanwhile , the country is filled with uncertainty.

All voters of the middle and poor classes, regardless of politial party, face economic delimmas. The wealthy could care less.

Speaking of the wealthy, Ricky Perry's son lost his job because of the president's policies. That's such a shame.

The republicans know better, yet this guy ( Perry) is a presidential contender.

If the republican majority has so much support of the american people, what's Boehner's problem if the outcome of the supercomitte doesn't fit into his ideals. Surely he should not have finding support from conservatives. Why is he squeamish? You think the "no raising taxes" stance is going to bite him in his rear-side?

Stay tuned for more of the "do nothing congress", brought to us by voters who were upset, with due understanding, and put 40+ tea people in power.

How does it feel? The tea folks are learning the ropes like the old-salts of congress. Meanwhile , the country is filled with uncertainty.

All voters of the middle and poor classes, regardless of politial party, face economic delimmas. The wealthy could care less.

Speaking of the wealthy, Ricky Perry's son lost his job because of the president's policies. That's such a shame.

The republicans know better, yet this guy ( Perry) is a presidential contender.

If the republican majority has so much support of the american people, what's Boehner's problem if the outcome of the supercomitte doesn't fit into his ideals. Surely he should not have finding support from conservatives. Why is he squeamish? You think the "no raising taxes" stance is going to bite him in his rear-side?

Stay tuned for more of the "do nothing congress", brought to us by voters who were upset, with due understanding, and put 40+ tea people in power.

How does it feel? The tea folks are learning the ropes like the old-salts of congress. Meanwhile , the country is filled with uncertainty.

All voters of the middle and poor classes, regardless of politial party, face economic delimmas. The wealthy could care less.

Speaking of the wealthy, Ricky Perry's son lost his job because of the president's policies. That's such a shame.

The republicans know better, yet this guy ( Perry) is a presidential contender.

If the republican majority has so much support of the american people, what's Boehner's problem if the outcome of the supercomitte doesn't fit into his ideals. Surely he should not have trouble finding support from conservatives. Why is he squeamish? You think the "no raising taxes" stance is going to bite him in his rear-side?

Stay tuned for more of the "do nothing congress", brought to us by voters who were upset, with due understanding, and put 40+ tea people in power.

How does it feel? The tea folks are learning the ropes like the old-salts of congress. Meanwhile , the country is filled with uncertainty.

All voters of the middle and poor classes, regardless of politial party, face economic delimmas. The wealthy could care less.

Speaking of the wealthy, Ricky Perry's son lost his job because of the president's policies. That's such a shame.

The republicans know better, yet this guy ( Perry) is a presidential contender.

If the republican majority has so much support of the american people, what's Boehner's problem if the outcome of the supercomitte doesn't fit into his ideals. Surely he should not have trouble finding support from conservatives. Why is he squeamish? You think the "no raising taxes" stance is going to bite him in his rear-side?

Stay tuned for more of the "do nothing congress", brought to us by voters who were upset, with due understanding, and put 40+ tea people in power.

How does it feel? The tea folks are learning the ropes like the old-salts of congress. Meanwhile , the country is filled with uncertainty.

All voters of the middle and poor classes, regardless of politial party, face economic delimmas. The wealthy could care less.

Speaking of the wealthy, Ricky Perry's son lost his job because of the president's policies. That's such a shame.

The republicans know better, yet this guy ( Perry) is a presidential contender.